Icy Clutches

Doris screamed. Her eyes popped open. The eyeballs rolled up out of sight. She lifted her heavy arms with unlikely grace and fainted.

Luckily for Elliott Fisk, he was able to leap nimbly out of the way at the last moment.

* * * *

'Listen to this,” Gideon said as the car pulled into the lodge parking area. —National Monument officials have now confirmed reports that the fragmentary human remains recently discovered at the terminus of Tirku Glacier are those of members of a botanical research party killed in a 1960 avalanche.’ And then—'A skeletal-identification expert has subsequently identified the bones as those of Fisk and James Pratt.’”

'When was this?” Owen said, turning the car onto the lodge driveway.

Gideon looked at the photocopy again. “September 8, 1964. You didn't know about it?'

'Nope, way before my time.'

'Well, I need to find out more about this, Owen. I'd love to see what this guy came up with, match my findings to his. And I'd like to see the bones themselves, if they're still available. Maybe they'd help us figure out which of the new fragments are Fisk's and which are Pratt's.'

'What would that do for us?” Owen pulled the car to a stop in the small parking space to the left of the main building and turned to face Gideon, one elbow over the back of the seat.

'For starters, it would tell us who got murdered.'

John stirred and stretched. “Doc,” he said sleepily, “those remains would have gone to the next of kin a long time ago. You have any idea what it takes to get an exhumation order? Assuming they weren't cremated.'

Gideon sagged. “That's right. Damn. John, don't you have any more information on this? The name of the expert?'

John shook his head. “Just what's in the article. Hey, Owen, which way's the dining room?'

They climbed out of the car and headed toward the main building. The sky was the same sullen gray it had been over Gustavus, but the air of Bartlett Cove was softer, milder; rich with the clean, damp-earth smell of ferns.

'What about you, Owen?” Gideon said. “There must be a record of this somewhere in your files. Photographs of the bones, maybe, or measurements.'

'Which files would those be?'

'I don't know; the official park files, I guess.'

The ranger put his head back and laughed. “I wouldn't count on it. In 1964 this place wasn't even a national park, just a monument and preserve. Hell, Alaska was barely a state. I don't think they were too big on files at the time. But let me ask Arthur. If anybody knows about files, Arthur's the man.'

They mounted the wooden steps to the deck surrounding the building. “Owen, something's bothering me,” Gideon said. “Here's an expedition lost on a glacier in 1960. Four years later, in 1964, a bunch of bones fall out of the terminus. And then some more from the same group pop out twenty-five years after that. How can that be? Why wouldn't they all be carried to the snout at the same speed, the speed the glacier's advancing? Flowing, I mean.'

Owen stopped with his hand on the front-door handle. “You don't know too much about glaciers, do you?'

Gideon sighed.

'Doc knows about everything,” John said.

'Not glaciers,” Gideon said.

'Well, nobody knows that much about glaciers, when you come down to it,” Owen said kindly, “but the rate of flow inside isn't necessarily the same as it is on top, or even the same from one part of a glacier to another. And when you're talking about what's happening in crevasses, nobody knows anything. All I can tell you is that a twenty-five-year spread isn't that amazing. There's an ice field on Mount Blanc—'

'Owen! Thank God you're back!'

They turned to see the lodge manager running nimbly over the deck toward them. Mr. Granle was a willowy and fragile man of thirty, whom Gideon had thus far not known to speak above a whisper or move with anything but discreet restraint.

'Owen, he's dead!” Mr. Granle shrieked. “He killed himself! Come quick!” He turned and started back the way he'd come.

'Who's dead?” Owen shouted after him. “Who—” He looked briefly at John and Gideon. His amiable face dropped. “Oh, shit.'

The three of them took off after Mr. Granle at a run.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter 10

* * * *

The guest units of Glacier Bay Lodge were small, attached, shake-roofed cottages that fanned out from the main building and were connected to it by a network of wooden walkways that rambled through the greenery and provided secure footing above ground that was sodden in summer and icy in winter. Mr. Granle scrambled over these with unexpected speed, like a spider skittering through its web; left from the main building, down a short